Archive for August, 2011|Monthly archive page

If I had a dollar for every time I’ve been knocked unconscious since I started traveling, I’d have enough money to burn this place to the ground and build an exact replica of the Burj Khalifa on top of the rubble.

Fine. If I’m going to play along with them, I have to keep my cool. It’s never been my strong suit, but there’s no other way out of here.

This isn’t right.

I feel…wrong. Could they be doing something to be here, suppressing my desire to revolt?

I’m whimpering from the pain by the time the doctor comes. She looks familiar. I’m sure I’ve met her, but I don’t know her name anymore.

“What…happened?” I choke out.

“We think you picked up a viral infection, likely from something you ate or a contaminated surface you cut yourself on while living in the tunnel system. It was very serious, but we think that since you regained consciousness relatively quickly after the incident, you can still make a full recovery.”

I feel like every hangover I’ve had in my life was collected, condensed, and injected directly into my skull. And every pore on my skin. I never realized you could feel pores individually, but trust me, you can. And my follicles. Every slight movement a strand of hair makes on my head is like a punch to the gut.

A nurse in pink scrubs appears, and she’s not one I remember from before.

“Oh! Oh my god. You’re awake.”

“What happened to me?” I ask.

“I…I’ll go get the doctors. I’m not supposed to talk to patients about their condition.”

Well, I’ll say this for them. They picked a very convincing lie to foist on me. The disease, if these materials can be believed, is real. And if they were going to trick me into thinking I was unwell, this would be the best way to do it.

I’ve taken in too much information today. I really should lie down.

I make my way back to the simple cot, take a drink of water from the plastic carafe they left for me, and slide beneath the crisp hospital sheets.

Interictal psychosis in patients with epilepsy is highly correlated with temporal lobe epilepsy. A 30-year-old woman was admitted with first break psychosis of acute onset characterized by disorganized behavior, loosening of association, auditory hallucinations, and persecutory delusions.

The patient had no prior psychiatric history and family history was noncontributory.

Other conditions associated with Fregoli syndrome include stroke, head injury and Alzheimer’s dementia.

MRIs of patients exemplifying Fregoli symptoms have shown parahippocampal and hippocampal damage in the anterior fusiform gyrus, as well as the middle and inferior of the right temporal gyri. The inferior and medial of the right temporal gyri are the storage locations for long term memory in retrieving information on visual recognition, specifically of faces; thus, damage to these intricate connections could be one of the leading factors in face misidentification disorders. Such damage may cause disruption in long term visual memory and lead to improper associations of human faces.